Gun Nuts
Gun Nut is a pejorative term used to describe a person with an unhealthy fascination with guns. The pathology is associated with the belief in the importance of guns as instrumental substitutes for a healthy masculinity. Overwhelmingly white, male, southern, and lower middle class, many gun nuts exhibit a misdirected resentment at their social marginalization through anti-intellectualism, sexism, homophobia and a barely coded racism. The term has also been used to describe the leaders of the National Rifle Assocation (NRA) such was Wayne LaPierre. Anxiety about security is a recurring theme in the rhetoric of gun nuts, and yet their obsessions only exacerbate insecurity. For example, airports in states with lax gun laws and 'gun cultures' like those in the Southeast have a higher incidence of people trying to board planes with concealed firearms. In this they are little different from Japanese nationalists fascinated by Japanese Second World War military aircraft as being motivated by intense feelings of inferiority. Film director Hayao Miyazaki described the love of weaponry as "a manifestation of infantile traits in an adult." The tragic reality is that guns in the American home are rarely used against stranger criminals and far more likely to be used by family members or acquaintances to kill or injure someone else or themselves. Note what happened to the family of gun rights champion Melanie Hain on October 6, 2009. Gun fetishization is also linked to the racism and Islamophobia. Blaming the Victim Who is to blame for gun crime? In the minds of many gun nuts it is actually the unarmed victim. Gun Owners of America’s Larry Pratt went so far as to blame the Charleston AME Pastor, who was one killed in the massacre, for voting against a concealed carry bill as a state senator. Breeding Fanatics Numerous elected officials have proven willing to ignore the violence that results from widespread gun ownership in making single issue political appeals to this pathological obsession. One of the consequences is a positive feedback loop between the discourse of the politicians and gun rights activists. Public statements have tended to become both more absolute and more threatening. There have been tragic consequences. On March 2009, 23 year old Edward Ruchard Poplawski, armed to the teeth and convinced that President Barack Obama would soon institute a ban on handguns, killed three Pittsburgh police officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance at his residence. According to his friend, Edward Percovic, Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way,” and that he “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon. Nobody ever expected something like this from him." Source Poplawski bought his four guns legally at Braverman Arms Co., on Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Source Terrorist violence isn't just something that lone fanatics do after they have been self radicalized. It is also something done by conspiratorial groups attempting to undermine lawful authority through intimidation as a prelude to seizing state power. What would they do if they seized state power? The sort of exterminationist fantasy voiced by Ted Nugent and Virgil Peck suggests the answer. As one of the junior partners in the conservative coalition, the gun lobby was more than willing to loan its unthinking followers to the health insurance lobby in its efforts to abort the provision of health care for all Americans. As Jay Gould once put it: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Strange how most gun nuts cannot understand how much they are being used by their social bettors. Perhaps the emotional pain of such unmanliness would be too much to bear. Beguiling the Foolish Fanatacism can make people vulnerable to exploitation. According to reporter Stephanie Mencimer, TheTeaParty.net based in Mesa, Arizona jumped into the anti-gun control/gun rights issue in 2013 becuase it allowed the group's organizers to collect "contact information and credit card numbers from unsuspecting and largely clueless conservative activists." Source: Tea Party Group Behind Saturday's Gun Rallies Under Fire. Encouraging Personal Irresponsibility American gun culture privileges the white male right to possess deadly weapons over the lives of women and children.37 year old White Floridian William DeHayes accidently killed his friends wife with an "unloaded" handgun in 2004 but that didn't mean he would be prosecuted or prevented from getting another gun. List of National Elected Officials * Sam Brownback * Kit Bond * John Barrasso * Richard Burr List of State and Local Elected Officials * Timothy Bearden * Bernie Herpin * Harri Anne Smith * Kyle Tasker Oops. NH State Representative accidently drops his gun in a committee hearing. Others * Ken Pagano clergy in Kentucky * James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response * Alex Jones * Daniel Crocker, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. * Nancy Lanza Tom Leonard. Mail Online. Decemember 17, 2012. * Ted Nugent * Andrew Arulanandam * Jonathan Orser Links * Dalton Gardens Idaho * Displaced aggression * Exterminationist fantasy * National Association of Riflemen * FRGO * Gun violence * Hoaxer * National Rifle Association * Political Lexicon * prepper * School Shooting Timeline * Second Amendments verb * Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act External Links * White Male Insecurity and External Death Penises * Ransom Notes: Gun Violence an American Tragedy * Guns Are America’s Weapons Of Mass Destruction * Local Senators Back New Concealed Weapons Bill * Oath Keepers * Show a Little Shame: Hubris and Gun Lobby by Firmin DeBrabander * Neil Heslin, Father Of Newtown Victim, Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists * Responsible Gun Owner Just Threatening To Shoot Daughter For Stepping On Dog’s Tail, Is That So Wrong? Wonkette. Feb. 11, 2014 * Gun Accidents on One Day * How to Tell the Difference Between an Open-Carry Patriot and a Deranged Killer Political Cartoon * Suspect In Chapel Hill Killings Had At Least 12 Guns, Huge Stash Of Ammo Jonathan Drew. AP. February 13, 2015.